Shelter in Place: Quarantine Romance Collection Includes New Novella

by Jamie Knight

  I did not look down, except at the side of her face. She was smiling, smirking, cheekily grinning at the slight touch of her foot on my inner thigh.

  We talked about it in our own imagination, yet never brought up between us in real life.

  That was when it got physical, yet, it stayed mute.

  I was in the private elevator going down when she joined me. I could tell her mind was elsewhere and not on the job that day. It came to me to try something.

  One foot away from her I leaned and stopped humming. I let the tension wake her up from the crevices of her mind. I bet it did. The lines of tension between us could be drawn, painted and stuffed on a wall by preschoolers.

  She ground into my hand when dropping off some paperwork on some Tuesday afternoon. I was lazy until I felt that bum, and its associative heat.

  I offered her a silent ride home after the quarantine started. It was silent and yet, loud.

  I asked her to come to my home and work with me on a project, one that would take Palmer Sporting Goods to the next level of industrial competition. She accepted, and ever since it has been Sisyphean getting her close enough to…

  Today I chickened out. I should have told her to stay and talked to her about it. She should have tried to let me know more than a simple apology. She should have…

  I should call her.

  The number comes on naturally to my fingers and it rings twice.

  ‘Miss Cast.’

  ‘Hello, Sir.’

  ‘Julia...’

  ‘I’m sorry. Force of habit. Hey, Henry.’

  ‘Are you alright? You left in such a hurry this morning.’

  She exhales and I hear some ruffling of sheets. She must be in bed. It’s just past 6.

  ‘I just needed to sort a few things out on my end. It did not feel right to keep on working with half a mind.’

  ‘But my own was here. Or at least half of it. I was here,’ I insist gently. ‘With half yours and half mine, we could have finished it all today.’

  I feel her smile and imagine that she is tasting her lips.

  ‘It was not intentional.’

  ‘I know. You did not -’

  ‘Julia?’

  ‘Sorry. Um… I’m okay, no need to worry.’

  The drink in my glass, almost empty and in need of a top up, looks great in this lighting.

  ‘Maybe this place does not make you comfortable. Would you mind if I came to yours tomorrow so that we can finish it? How does 9 sound?’

  Static.

  I push the phone closer to my ear.

  I hear her breathing.

  Fast.

  ‘Julia?’

  A click.

  The line is dead.

  I try her again.

  Busy.

  My gut hums loud right now, and I know what must be done. I set the glass down and move swiftly past the Victorian seats, past the old low chandeliers and fight the long black coat up and down my arms. I grab the keys behind the hidden painting and pluck the mask off a rack in the wall.

  I am out the door. I lock it. Dashing left, I find the garage door. I palm the screen and it beeps. The door slides inward and upward. Eyes of glass and color glare back.

  I choose my stead. The Harley will do for tonight. I kick it up and let it roar. The blue button on the right lever blinks as I pump the gas. The garage door locks behind me.

  The gate magnetically opens. The air slams into my face. Cold. Sudden. I push the gears harder. I swallow the bitter swill in my mouth. My gut hums louder.

  Chapter Five - Julia

  ‘So tell me what you want to hear, something that’ll light those years, sick of all the insincere, I’m gonna give ALL MY SECRETS AWAY...’

  I would have won The Voice in a swoop, man. The lights, cameras, crowd would have all bowed down to my two cold feet, billowed a sexy gust right from the bottom up of my red cotton fluff robe and crowned me the Queen of Altos.

  The semi-full pink hot water bottle by my feet is trying and failing at its one job. Between my two cold feet, it is nuzzled and rubbed and fondled. Rhythm from the mildly blasting speakers find my arms in the air as I sing along to a classic that pulled me through college and while house hunting for a roommate.

  OneRepublic was Charlotte Prestige’s favorite band before she found funky beats from the mystical chimes of the Haitian people. I pull the glass of wine closer to my lips and take the old country in. I am no expert, but whoever made this batch in 2010 knew what they were doing. It slides down my throat and I smile.

  At a time like now, Charlie would have forced me to the kitchen with mitts on, and we would have made fudge from scratch. She would have made sure I had my fill of her childhood stories, and later we would argue about whose childhood memories of music or movies were correct.

  She would then ask me, when totally inebriated, whether I had had sex behind the bleachers for my sweet sixteen. The answers to these painfully personal questions would be an obvious and blatant NO, masked deceptively under the guise of needing to sleep or being too tired to have such a chat at two in the morning.

  She would pass out, and I would have taken an old, tattered muumuu that lay on the third hand couch we so cherished and covered her sick Norse tattoos and lightly moisturized arms. I would sleep next to her and thank the heavens, or the depths, or whoever listens to such utterances from the lips of a quiet and saintly virgin, for a friend who came from the worst and most vile and highly questionable vestiges on the planet: Craigslist.

  My phone. It buzzes twice and vibrates off my thighs. The caller ID is one I would know even when blind. It had a serious black tie and briefcase next to the name. I swipe right.

  Something clutters in the kitchen. Loudly.

  ‘Julia?’ he asks.

  I cut him off and hush the device to silent mode. Hastily I kick the bottle from my feet and hear it sploosh all over the carpet.

  I am on my knees, the band around my waist tightening between numbing fingers. Under the bed. It’s so stupid it’s almost Hollywood. But it will have to do. I have no closet. I have no attic. I have no fucking secret door behind the mirror that I can hide behind.

  Moving the strands of the duvet to the side, I grip my way through the dust bunnies and old shoes and lean on my elbows for support. The screen lights up. I swipe left.

  I am alone. And yet I am not alone.

  I shut my eyes and do that thing we all do during times like these. I pray.

  I hide inside my mind. Scrubbed pots and pans and dying flowers and mom’s shepherd’s pie and fresh custard apples and old school shoes and runny water behind the rusty tap and old newspapers for Bugle and a tiny spatula and my first Prom dress and the last kiss on the cheek before running away from him and the acceptance letter to college and the late night phone call and the blinking laptop light and the…

  Boots. Soft leather. Crunching glass.

  This is it. Oh God this is it. Please forgive me for being a bitch in high school. I didn’t mean not to make friends. I’m sorry I lied to my dad that day I played hooky. I am sorry for not donating to charity and drinking Starbucks on Monday mornings right outside the church.

  Oh God, I am sorry for never closing my eyes when mom prayed. I am sorry I thought about Henry in those dirty ways. I’m-

  ‘Julia!’

  Eyes wide open.

  I know those boots.

  ‘Julia!’

  I know that voice.

  ‘Henry?’

  ‘Julia!’

  Heavy arms lift the bed’s covers up and a concerned, upside down face meets mine. Henry. He came. I am unlocked on the inside, and the tears do their thing.

  ‘Hey, hey… it’s alright. It’s okay.’

  Warmth. Embrace. Safety.

  ‘I don’t know what it was… I… I… I was on the phone with you and then I heard a loud crash in the… in the kitchen… and I had to hide for I don’t know how long in there… and… oh God...’

  Am I breaking down, or are hi
s hands on my face?

  They are on my face.

  He glances at me and smiles.

  ‘I got on my bike and came here as fast as I could. The front door was open and intact. There’s nobody here besides me. I checked. You are safe. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’m sorry.’

  Those words are rare and few and far in between. The throb in my heart slows down. I smell his outdoorsy scent mixed with cologne. It beats harder, this time for something else. His touch.

  I have not felt his skin on mine like this before. Fear is out of the window. This is something else.

  And he feels it too.

  Between us there is a simmering heat begging to be cooled. He searches for it with the tip of his lips. I help him. We find it together, at the same place, at the same time, and we merge. He tastes of old liquor and caged hunger. His nose rubs into mine, and I breathe him in. I am weightless. I am floating.

  We lose it and stare into each other’s eyes. I see dilated beings begging to be closed. He shuts them. I do too.

  We find that heat again, this time with dripping wetness of our own. His tongue explores my mouth. I back away, shy. He beckons me. Fingers go deep into my hair. Fingers go wider onto my robed body. I sigh into him.

  ‘I’m kinda naked underneath.’

  He grins widely and asks, ‘Aren’t we all?’

  My handsome boss strips me down easily. I watch as the soft hazy yellow light hits his solid frame. He is in a coat, a button-down shirt, khaki pants and a leather belt intact. Under the buckle is a bulge and it’s growing.

  His fingers slide down my arms, the underside of the robe slithering off my skin like a sheet off a brand new car. I am cold. He fills that void.

  Lips meld into one tangle for absolution, and his weight presses against my chest. My hand is above my head. I feel his bicep trace across my erect nipples, and he finds my other hand. I am shackled by his grip. His tongue slithers across the space between my B cups, and his teeth remind my radiating nipples who he is.

  My boss. Pinning me down. Unbuckling himself.

  His pants fall off and I help him kick them away. He lifts his torso above mine and watches every inch of me. He’s like a tiger on a gazelle or playing with its food. He licks his lips and nods.

  I use my calves. Then my feet. His pants slide off. I graze his buttock, tight and firm. The black bulge does not beg for release.

  I do.

  Slowly.

  Nine inches minimum. It is straight, no curves. Full of veins. And it is very, very hard.

  ‘Henry...’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘I’ll be gentle,’ he whispers.

  It is like the best holiday meal, rolled up into a feeling. He is now plunging into the parts of my body that nothing except for two of my fingers has ever touched. My clit sends jolts up and down my neck. I feel my nails dig into his shoulders, my teeth clenched, and my body opening up for him.

  Henry rubs along my cunt, while my juices that have been percolating for him for over three years, a testimony unveiled, are oozing down my pink pussy for him. He goes in deeper. I feel its heat, its paced throbs.

  I open my eyes and calm down, the sudden shift in feeling, the range of element panicking through my body, and see him. The thin line across the bottom of his face curves into a loving smile.

  ‘You feel and look amazing, Miss Cast.’

  ‘You too,’ I say. ‘I’ve been wanting this for a long time.’

  ‘Ah. So have I.’

  His grip tightens. My heart skips. It skipped like this once before, on the very top of a long dip down a roller coaster.

  Henry takes his shaft out of me by two inches or so.

  Then he rams it all the way in. My thighs weaken and my chest heaves. He pulls back out and rams it in again.

  ‘Ah!’ I say, feeling pain mixed with pleasure.

  ‘Shush, Miss Cast. The fun has not yet even begun.’

  Henry is no more man than animal. Skin becomes machine as he plunders and caresses and fucks and makes love to me. My arms grow tired. They ache from clutching unto nothing.

  My breasts are sore, wet and in pain from his biting, his slurping, his slapping. I beg for release, and he tells me, in no word, all grunts, how he will not grant it to me unless… unless I give in and cum for him.

  ‘Heeenryyyy,’ I moan, as an orgasm overtakes me.

  Pound for pound, my core winds itself and uncoils in unfettered explosion. I scream hard and feel my thighs and ass cheeks clench to release something more than just an orgasm. Powerful and wet, three spurts of clear liquid splash across him. Three short bursts from my cunt.

  And he does not stop.

  His thick balls slap my pussy hard. Now I feel only pleasure, no pain. God, I want so badly to lick them, as I always have done in my fantasies. I treasure the danger of doing this. The risk. The urge to stifle my screams and hope that no one walks in to harm us.

  Oh fuck… yes… yes... yeeesss…. The… mmmh… the blood boiling… the rush to fuck and own and be owned and…

  ‘Aaaah.’

  He slows his thrust and lets the wave crash through me. I arch my back so hard his cock twists with mine. I suck it all in; the salty air, our sweaty energy, his fucking shaft ready to spurt and explode, and I cum.

  ‘Oh, Julia,’ he groans.

  I open my eyes to see his pulsing dick expunge jets of cum all over my chest and thighs and breasts.

  The ecstasy is fantasy. The twin pulsing is unfamiliar and blissful.

  I am a virgin no more.

  Chapter Six - Henry

  I am engulfed by dreams so wild their comprehension evades me. Julia’s pussy lathers my cock with cunt juice and pulls me in when I pull out.

  She is under my grip, under my weight, under my spell, under my complete and utter ownership of her body, mind and soul. Her legs hook me by the waist, and I plunge deeper, balls deeper, until I feel the familiar rise.

  Her lips softly melt into mine. Our sweat joins into something similar as I fuck her mind out and breathe breath into her. Her eyes roll up and inward. Her breasts, so sweet and bubbly under my tongue, bounce against my chin.

  She wants so badly to use her hands. She does not understand.

  I make the rules.

  This is just the beginning.

  She is in my arms, the coat and robe tussled somewhere at the foot of the bed. She plays with the tiny pool of cum on her navel. I play with the spray of gush that she squirted all over my shirt and arms.

  ‘Keeping the coat on was an extra touch. I liked the feeling. It rubbed my ass and covered us up really well.’

  She laughs and leans into my chest. I untangle her hair and fray her scalp mildly.

  She sighs.

  ‘What?’

  Lifting her eyes up at me, she says, ‘We had sex in a house that has just been raided. Don’t you see how...’

  ‘Thrilling it was?’ I reply.

  ‘You think that was thrilling?’ She sounds… amazed.

  ‘I made sure we were alone, Julia. I made sure of it.’

  Her shoulders shift uncomfortably inward, as if they’re cold. I make up for the shift.

  ‘What happened?’

  Her elbows knock my ribs, gently. I move inward and caress her breast with my pinky, and then, finally, cup it in my hand. Her frown curves upward. It stalls flat. Her eyes glaze over for a second as the memory comes to her. I keep my tongue still and watch and wait.

  ‘It did not just start tonight. I think this has been going on for a very long time. I noticed it for the first time today. I walked in from our work and rested. I was thinking of you, actually.’ I hide my grin. ‘The light went on and off. I saw it. I swear I saw it. I had to come here to check on the house, and also because I need to find more work. Finances aren’t great for me at the moment.’

  She sucks a sweet cold cup of air and goes on.

  ‘Julia. Forget finances. You know I’ll take good care of you. I’ll q
uadruple your salary. Don’t worry about that. What’s this other issue?’

  ‘I think I’m being stalked, Henry.’

  ‘How?’ I ask softly.

  Her face points east. I follow. A closed thick black laptop rests on the dressing table. The charging light is on. It blinks on the side.

  ‘You think a hacker is stalking you?’

  ‘Hacker… sounds old, but yes. I think so.’

  Feeling a primal need to protect her, I hold her arms and hoist her up. We sit at the edge of the bed. Her thighs are still sticky.

  ‘Do you have a bag packed and ready to go?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Grab it and change. We are not safe here.’

  In my mind the rational and logical steps to take slam each other in rapid fire. Her images could be all over the Internet. I could very well be a target, not knowing how many cameras were around her apartment.

  The man or woman, the intruder, must still be in the vicinity. Why did they choose tonight to come to her home and frighten her? What were they here for and why now?

  A curled hand on my shoulder calms me. I turn. She is dressed in sweats and a cotton shirt. A hoodie. Hidden pleasures beam under these clothes. My shaft twitches, even though I know it’s the wrong time.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  The streets are empty. The roar of my steed is loud. The warmth of her arms around me is more than I deserve.

  We are home. I don’t bother with the lights, nor the pleasantries. Her thighs in my arm and her face in my chest, I hold and carry her down the steps into my bedroom. She does not protest. I feel her breath slow down, her guard lowered.

  I know the place like a bat, and after setting her down on the bed, I move away and strike a few matches. Three candles will be enough. The gray walls blink back in old displeasure.

  The room is filled with incandescent light, a taste of the vintage priests who had built this house as a church first. I turn to her, peel off my mask and plod towards the bed. She has her arms to the side, her head tilted. Her eyes are shut, and her breathing is regular. She fell asleep.